Branding “maian” part one

Being able to create a brand new BRAND is an exciting prospect. So I was very excited when asked to create a new brand identity for a new Bakery in Hanoi. MAIAN Bakers. The new name in Hanoi’s bustling Patisserie industry. However what was to make this bakery different was its market position and their desire to offer quality products to all Hanoians regardless of stature. The brand needed to stand out from the local competition, Classy not luxury and have a longevity.

Firstly let’s look at the competition, there are literally thousands of small independent bakeries in Hanoi serving their local communities. A handful of well established bakery chains. Plus the international brands that have established themselves over recent years. Recently I have also seen luxury bakery and patisserie brands popping up in new shopping centers and malls. One Iconic brand being PAULS from france. This creates a great benchmark as MAIAN wants to establish itself between the established local brands and the PAULS of world.

Another thing that struck me in my original research for the project was the use of colour and fonts used in bakery and patisserie branding. Local business all seem to use brown as their base adding pastels of green, blue or pink or complimentary shades, bakery names written in Script. Luxury bakery brands make heavy use of black enabling classic Serif font types to stand out in white or gold.

What also made this project enjoyable was working with other agencies involved in the Shop design and general brand theme that would eventually be used across all marketing and media.

Considering all I had learned from my research and the wishes of the client I began looking at the name MAIAN itself and how it visually looks. I began to play with different typefaces, their composition allowing the name to come alive and place itself in the client’s aesthetic.

Some of these then went on to further development. Some concepts hit the mark, others evolved into something irrelevant to the brand focus. Eventually I settled on a few concepts to discuss with my client.

During our next meeting we discussed the designs and how they related to the brand brief until we were satisfied and had a clear base design which surprising jumped off the page and cried out choose me!. Which is always nice.